{"id":7036699,"date":"2026-08-10T14:08:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/is-andy-burnham-seriously-about-to-tour-britain-like-some-medieval-monarch-zoe-williams\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:08:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:08:22","slug":"is-andy-burnham-seriously-about-to-tour-britain-like-some-medieval-monarch-zoe-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7036699","title":{"rendered":"Is Andy Burnham seriously about to tour Britain like some medieval monarch? | Zoe Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A<\/span>ndy Burnham is going on a \u201clistening tour\u201d, travelling the country on a bus to find out what real people are concerned about. I\u2019ve heard commentators rationalise the idea in various ways: apparently it underscores the difference between him and his predecessor, who only ever relaxed when he was out of the country; what else is Burnham going to do in recess, with his cabinet already chosen \u2013 organise his Post-it notes?; he\u2019s been out of politics a long time, and many people will be only dimly aware of who he is; his speeches to date have had a very urban focus, and particularly with farming being this season\u2019s crisis sector, he needs to broaden his sphere of interest to take in rural areas. Truly, the prime ministerial honeymoon period is like a one-year-old\u2019s birthday party \u2013 all you have to do is stand up and smile, for everyone to clap.<\/p>\n

None of the rationalisations are in any way true: an in-person focus group, where you journey to discover a range of concerns you could figure out for yourself with one report from the Institute for Public Policy Research and half a brain, is exactly the kind of thing Starmer would have done, if he\u2019d thought of it. There\u2019s quite a bit to be getting on with, between now and September, since autumn\u2019s looming crises \u2013 food shortages, energy price hikes due to the ongoing war in Iran \u2013 are plain, and there\u2019s no better time to plan than when you don\u2019t have the leader of the opposition yanking your chain. Burnham actually has tremendous household-level recognition, thanks to a combination of hinterland and eyelashes, as evidenced by the fact that even when contesting Makerfield<\/a> he got mobbed every time he got out of a car. Now, the conditions devastating farmers<\/a>, being the direct result of climate crisis, would be better addressed by a long-range strategy on the transition to renewables, not a chinwag.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll meet the road show halfway, though, and accept that the thinking behind it is buried deeper in the squishy collective subconscious than the \u201cmarketing strategy for mid-sized building society\u201d strata. This is the living definition of \u201cperipatetic\u201d, an adjective usually attached to kings. Medieval kings travelled around the country in order to collect their taxes by literally eating them from one noble estate to the next<\/a>. Tax hikes could be exacted by simply adding to your entourage and eating more. King John\u2019s train stretched two miles, bulked up by the mercenaries required to protect the pampered non-warrior class from rebel barons who were sick of having their food eaten. In a pesky feedback loop, the larger your entourage, the more you all ate, the more annoyed the aristocracy became, the more mercenaries you needed and the larger your entourage.<\/p>\n

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Burnham could be forgiven for thinking he\u2019s more than a match for this death spiral, having the lessons of history right there, but can we forgive him for the emotional leap that put him on his tour bus? His first question seems to have been not \u201cWhat would the leader of a mature democracy in an embattled period do?\u201d but \u201cWhat would be the first move of the King of the North<\/a>?\u201d His kingly role models must all come from the dawn of monarchy, since by the time you get to Henry VIII, he\u2019s only really travelling to escape sewage overflow from his last great palace. But then \u201cKing of the North\u201d has always had a very medieval overtone. A sign of the early modern period\u2019s growing governmental sophistication was its ability to distinguish one bit of the north from another.<\/p>\n

It is endearing, if also nerve-racking and painful, to consider the faith underpinning this self-fashioning \u2013 that leadership is an innate quality more important than sequential thought and planning, and that if the stars light upon a leader who can connect with his people, the nation will come together, good decisions will be made, and the rest is detail. One can but hope that\u2019s the limit of the wishful thinking, and he\u2019s not also banking on some dragons.<\/p>\n